Memories of a 15-year-old White Drummer in a Black Blues Band
I wrote this back in 2019 but apparently never published it. This is a autobiographical vignette about when I was the drummer for “Robert Johnson’s Blues Band” (no, not ‘THE’ R.J. — it’s a common name). My Dad was the bassist for a group of black John Deere foundry retirees who had a blues and RNB band just for fun. We did have a couple of gigs, but mostly we just played in Robert Lee’s basement (Yes, he was known both as Robert Johnson and Robert Lee). It was a great and formative time in my life and I’ll never forget what Eddie Culpepper meant to me as a mentor.
📅 Date Written: 2019‑02-11
Dear Reader,
When I was 15 (1991) living in Waterloo, IA my dad bonded over yardwork and tree trimming with an old black man across the street. Turns out his name was Robert Johnson (no, not the famous Robert Johnson) — and he was a harmonica player and blues musician looking for a bass player. Well, Dad used to play bass in a country band in his youth and he’s pretty good at figuring things out, and he was looking for an opportunity to play music with like-minded individuals.
So, Mr. Johnson asked Dad if he would like to sit in as a bass player one day. Well sir, Dad and the rest of the musicians — all black (we were white folk) hit it off and became fast friends. They were black folk from the south — now retired in their 60’s — who migrate north to Iowa for work from Mississippi in the late 1960’s. They mostly came to work at the John Deere tractor manufacturing facility, foundry, Chamberlain (a DOD missile housing manufacturer), and Rath Packing (a hog slaughterhouse).
The guys in the band were racist against whites in the 1960’s and 1970’s based on their personal experiences with whites. But, time had mellowed them out, and they had learned that a lot of white people were great human beings. They learned that music — the universal language — is spoken by everyone who hears the vibration of love in their soul, regardless of what color skin-suit they happened to be born into.
After Dad had been playing with the band for about a year or two, their drummer left and he asked me if I’d want to try out. I didn’t know much about playing drums – I was a rock guitar player – but I knew patterns and timing and I was excited about this opportunity. So, I gave it a shot.
They loved me and treated me like another one of the guys. I loved those guys so much! Blues with a Feeling was one of the Mississippi Delta Blues songs we performed. Some others were “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues”, “Honky Tonk Women”, “Nobody Knows It But Me”, “Mannish Boy (I’m a Man)”, “End of the Rainbow”, “Dock of the Bay”, “When a Man Loves a Woman”, “Caribbean Queen”, “Just My Imagination” and more. Oh, and don’t let me forget the great Muddy Waters’ “Got My Mojo Workin'”. I learned a lot from that experience and I’ll never forget how they treated me as a brother, as equals.
Eddie the guitarist was a great mentor and I was sorry to hear recently that he passed. Robert passed a few years earlier and the rest of the guys just fell away after that. But, I will never forget that summer. The summer of 1991, when I became a bonafide blues musician. When I was in the world I played guitar for several metal and hard rock bands. Now I play guitar for my church and sometimes I feel like Eddie is with me, guiding me in what to play.
#PROGRESS_NOT_PERFECTION